


Eglantine - I wound to heal

by TintedPink



Series: Lysa Does Something Stupid [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Lovelessness, M/M, Stephen-centric, Ungraphic depiction of surgery, forced aromanticism, one sided pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 13:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18740188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TintedPink/pseuds/TintedPink
Summary: Hanahaki disease, except there is no happy ending





	1. Chapter 1

_Hanahaki disease is a usually fatal diagnosis in which the person grows flowers for their unrequited love in their chest. These flowers, if not removed by reciprocation of said love or surgery, will eventually kill the affected person. The surgery is usually effective, but it is rarely undertaken as it has a side effect of removing the ability of the previously diseased person to love romantically, familially and platonically. The decision to live without love after Hanahaki disease is a difficult one, but support groups exist for survivors. To find groups in your area…_

Stephen throws the pastel pamphlet down onto the library table and is immediately seized by another coughing fit. Wong stands and reaches for Stephen, but Stephen pushes him away pointing to the pamphlet with one shaking hand while the other tries to cover his mouth and catch the beginnings of tiny purple petals dislodged by his cough.

Wong looks  uncertainly at Stephen, obviously wanting to be of some help, but he follows Stephen’s instructions and picks up the pamphlet, his eyebrows scrunching in confusion.

“What is this? Hanahaki disease? Stephen-” The coughing fit finally ends and Stephen produces a handful of purple lilac petals, mixed with new yellow petals that he hadn’t been coughing up that morning.

“I’m sick, Wong. I need you to find someone to fill in for you for a couple of days.”

Wong just stares at the petals in Stephen’s hands, seeing but not understanding how his friend who seemed so indifferent could be afflicted with the love disease of all things. He looks back down at the pamphlet, aptly titled, “The Choice to Have Surgery” and then back at the hopeless petals, still free of blood.

“It’s not too late, not if I get it taken care of now.” Stephen is panting, out of breath from his coughing fit, and Wong offers him a chair. Stephen collapses into it gratefully, locking the door to the library magically so they aren’t disturbed. “We just lost the Ancient One, I can’t afford to die.”

“You know the consequences?” Wong asks, watching the discarded petals fall into the trashcan by his desk while Stephen resolutely doesn’t look at them.

“I do. Better Loveless than dead.”

“Have you explored every other option?” Wong raises an eyebrow at him and Stephen rolls his eyes.

“There are no other options Wong. I need someone to be there while the perform the surgery in case of complications, and Christine can’t know. Please.” The platitude is so uncharacteristic that Wong makes up his mind to help without even considering it. Stephen is doing his best to look determined but Wong can read the fear in his eyes.

“I will find someone to attend to the library. Schedule the operation.”

Stephen nodded, slumping even further in his chair. Wong expected Stephen to leave now that he had what he wanted, but Stephen just closes his eyes, forcing his breathing to even out. The last time Stephen looked this ragged was when he was just coming to Kamar Taj. It was a sad sight to see.

“If you wish to talk, I will be here.”

Stephen smiles but doesn’t open his eyes. “Thank you, Wong.”

\----

He schedules the removal for a boring nothing sort of Thursday, and he tries not to criticize the doctors operating on him too much. He can’t help but offer commentary as they prep him for surgery until they put him under. He knows they must be glad to anaesthetize him.

He wakes up and he doesn’t really feel any different. Wong is seated beside his hospital bed, and he’s apparently been awake several times already, but can’t remember it. Stephen checks to make sure he can still use his magic and move his limbs before he asks Wong what the doctors said.

“They said it was successful, you may still have a few petals, but they should pass once you’ve finished healing.” Wong’s eyes are sympathetic and Stephen can’t find it in him to care.

“Good. Thank you. You can leave now if you want to.” Stephen doesn’t have any more immediate need for Wong, and he’s needed to fulfill his post at the library.

“Are you sure? I can stay a little longer.” There’s a searching in Wong’s eyes, and whatever he’s looking for he must come up empty, because he frowns. Maybe he sees the Lovelessness in Stephen.

“I’m sure. Go back to Kamar Taj.” He smiles, because it will placate the man, and Wong nods then gets up to leave.

Stephen watches him leave and feels a subtle twinge of emptiness. An absence of platonic love, maybe. It was strange to think he could feel that way towards Wong and never notice it, but he hadn’t noticed that he loved Tony Stark until he started coughing up lilacs. Maybe Stephen didn’t know himself as well as he liked to think he did. Well, at least now there were fewer things to know.

——

Stephen hasn’t even been in recovery for twelve hours when a jaunty spider child knocks on the window his hospital room and lets himself in. “Hiya Doctor Strange! Mr. Stark said that his weird keep-track-of-people algorithm saw you had been checked into a hospital and he wanted me to check on you.” He closes the window behind him and then checks that the room is clear before removing his mask and taking out his hoodie and track pants from his bag to redress. “Everything okay?” The kid doesn’t look worried, which meant Tony had probably told him not to worry, which meant Tony had probably hacked into his hospital records. What an asshole.

“I’m alright, Peter, just some minor elective surgery. Everything went well and they’re releasing me in the morning.”

“Elective surgery?” The boy asks, taking the chair Wong had vacated twelve hours previous. “What for? Did you get your appendix removed?” He tilts his head like he’s trying to think of what other kinds of elective surgery Stephen might have.

Stephen feels that pang of emptiness again, the empty space where love used to be for a child he watches die a too many deaths.

“It’s really not any of your business Peter.” He smiles, because it’s important to keep up appearances now that he’s Loveless, and Peter seems to believe him, because he just smiles back.

“Mr. Stark said you’d say that, but that I should be persistent. So… do you wanna tell me now?” Peter’s face is bright and wide open, knitted together by a thousand watt smile and persistence. It’s kind of nice to see, though it doesn’t draw up the same feelings of warmth that it once did.

“No, I don’t, because it’s still not any of your business.” He props himself up a little farther in the hospital bed so maybe the kid will take him seriously. “Tell Tony that he needs to stop sending his ward to spy on me.”

“I’m not his ward.” Peter wrinkled his eyebrows and Stephen laughs, not unkindly, at the disgruntled face.

“Go, Peter, I’m fine. Besides, it’s a school night.”

Now Peter’s forehead crumples as his eyes narrow beneath furrowed brows. “It’s Friday, Mr. Strange.”

“It’s very late Thursday night. Go. I’m sure your aunt is worried about you.”

Peter tries to stifle a yawn that only proved Stephen’s point while he shakes his head. “She doesn’t even know I’m gone. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me?”

“I’m sure. Go home.”

Peter purses his lips but eventually conceded. “Alright. Well, get well soon Doctor Strange.” He turns to climb out the window and then stops, “oh wait!” He slings his backpack down into the chair he’s been using and rifles through it for a tiny, bright pink, stuffed bear. “That’s from Mr. Stark.” He sets the bear down on the side table. “He says it’s a get well present.” He nods like his business is done and then turns to leave again. “Bye for real Doctor Strange.” He climbs out the window and closes it behind him, turning back to wave before he swings away on webs of his own design.

Stephen smiles, amused Peter’s antics, and then reaches for the bear. “Get well soon, huh?” He raises an eyebrow at the glassy eyes and looks straight into them while he speaks. “Doesn’t Pepper have some kind of understanding with you about boundaries?”

Stephen’s phone rings on the bedside table and he knows that this is the true test. If the surgery was successful then when Tony talks to him he’ll be entirely unaffected. Even now thinking about Tony leaves an empty ache that the doctors promised would dissipate as he healed, just like the last of the petals.

He makes an inquisitive face at the bear when he sees the caller ID is Stark.

“You sent a child with a bear to spy on me, don’t you have any shame?” Stephen laughs, but it’s not tinged with the vibrant sadness that it used to be. He’s laughing more at the ridiculous situation than at Tony doing it.

“Yes, but I refuse to acknowledge it. Look, you took yourself off the roster for the week and then I found out you were having surgery? I was worried.”

“Needlessly. It was an elective surgery, totally safe. I’m fine.” He set the beat back down on the night table, pointing it’s camera eyes toward the window like a little pink guard bear.

“Well, How was I supposed to know that?”

“You say that like you didn’t hack into the hospital records to find out exactly what I had done.”

“Haha! I didn’t!” Tony sounds too proud of himself for doing something that should really be considered common decency.

“I’m actually surprised by that.” Pleasantly surprised now that there was no need to explain to his married unrequited love that he’d had a surgery to end his Hanahaki disease. Tony would just blame himself, like he had any control of Stephen’s feelings.

“Well, I’m full of surprises. We still on for lunch, Saturday? Pepper is really excited about being able to go to Paris for lunch without increasing her carbon footprint.

“Sure. I should be discharged by tomorrow.”

“Great. See you then Gandalf.”

Tony hung up before Stephen could get in a retort. He snorted and then set his phone down on the table by the bear. He could feel a hollow space in his chest where his love for Tony used to be, this one a more painful ache than the two he’s felt before it. Like the feeling of having air caught somewhere it shouldn’t be an a stabbing ache. Coupled with the return of feeling to the place where they’d opened his chest cavity to remove the deadly flowers, Stephen felt horrible, but at least now he wasn’t going to die. That was the important thing. He couldn’t afford to leave the world unprotected. Earth wasn’t prepared for a world without Stephen Strange, but it wouldn’t miss Stephen Strange’s capacity to love.

And neither would Stephen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: In the aftermath of the surgery to remove his Hanahaki Disease, Stephen thinks he’s coping well with being Loveless, but maybe he isn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t originally intend to continue this, but then I did, so now I’ve made a mess. Hope you enjoy this one :)

”Dr. Strange, you seem to be healing well.” The doctor who performed his surgery is back the next morning, looking at a clip board prepared by the nurse an hour before. “No signs of infections that we can see. When I sign you out I assume you know what to look for. Redness, swelling, pus, anything more than a very light cough and a couple petals and I want to see you in the ER.” She waves the clipboard at Strange, “But you knew that already.”

“I had a good idea. You gonna tell me to take it easy next?” He laughs and the doctor laughs with him.

“Yes, I want you on bedrest for the next few days, so no more than it takes to eat, shower and take care of yourself. You can go back to your normal activities in about about a week, barring any heavy exercise or lifting. I’d wait about a month, but by three weeks you should be safe. Come back and get those stitches out in a week.”

Stephen nods, already bored. If he could still use his hands he would have just taken the stitches out himself. If he could still use his hands he never would have fallen in love in the first place.

The doctor takes Stephen’s nod as a sign to continue the conversation, “We had a lot of patients come in to treat Hanahaki after The Snap, after their objects of affection died they wanted to get rid of the disease, hoped it would take away their pain, but that’s not really how this works.” She pulls a chair up beside him and rests her clipboard on the still untouched tray they’d brought him breakfast on. “Your capacity to feel negative emotions hasn’t been diminished. You’ll still be angry, happy, sad. You’ll still grieve. The only thing that’s gone is love. You can still live a full and happy life after this. But,” she pulled another pamphlet out of the clipboard and handed it to him, “because of a court case a few months ago, where a guy blamed being Loveless for his murder spree, post-op patients have mandatory counseling for six months. If you don’t attend with a ninety-percent attendance rate then you can be fined. Anything less than eighty and they can put you in prison. We hope that the courts will overturn it, it’s a ridiculous measure, but until then I have no choice but to ask you to observe it. I believe someone spoke to you about group options?”

“Yes, I think I’d prefer that, if it fulfills the requirements.” With a group he can attend without speaking. He can fulfill his requirement without having to expose himself any more than necessary.

“Only certified groups do. There’s a list of the ones in New York that satisfy the requirements in the pamphlet. An individual counselor or therapist can also work with you, you’re required to attend one meeting per week or one individual session every two weeks. You can switch from one to the other at any time, but I wouldn’t recommend bouncing around too much.” She reached for her clipboard again and pulled out a pale pink sheet of paper. “This is a list of every group in the state, and licensed counselors. I’ve circled the group that I go to, so you can choose if that’s an attractor or a deterrent.” She hands him the page and he looks down at the bright purple highlighter circled group, “Loveless Anonymous.” He looked back up at her, surprise obvious on his face.

“Yeah, I know. Loveless doctor making other people Loveless, what a crime.” She rolled her eyes, “I have a lot more compassion for post-ops than some other doctors.” She covered her hand with his to keep his attention, “Compassion, consideration, friendliness, those are all things you can still feel. Hell, I have a platonic partner. This doesn’t have to be the end of anything. It’s just a different kind of beginning.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He draws his hand out from under hers, pretending to study the sheet. “When will I be released.”

“This afternoon. Do you have someone I can release you into the care of?”

No.

“Yes.”

She nodded and stood up. “I’ll be by one more time before you go to check the incision. If the cough returns while you’re still here you know where the nurse call button is.” She smiled and then left the room, leaving Stephen to his thoughts.

——

“Strange, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Tony asks when Stephen redials his most recent phone call.

“The hospital won’t release me unless someone drives me home. I tried to tell the woman that making a portal would be faster and more efficient, but she-“

“Say no more. I have an honorary doctorate in hospital breaks. When are you being released?”

“As soon as they have someone to release me to.” He had tried getting ahold of Wong, but he wasn’t answering his phone, and the nurse had taken his sling ring until she knew that someone was coming to pick him up. Contacting Tony is only logical. He has the most resources, and would be least inconvenienced by getting some robot to come and pick him up.

“Great, I’ll be there in… 7 minutes.” The call ends and Stephen is surprised. He hadn’t expected Tony to come and pick him up himself. He’d expected Tony to send one of the hundreds of people who work for him in New York, or maybe even an unmanned armor with an AI piloting it, not for Tony to come in person. He feels a twinge of something that almost feels like nausea, but it passes quickly. He realizes belatedly that it must be more empty space, love hampered.

True to his word Stark arrives in 7 minutes and comes in grins ablazing. He charms his way all the way up to recovery before a nurse finally stops him and asks him about his relation to Stephen.

“Today I’m his driver. I’m happy to get him out of your hair.” He cast another charming expression in the direction of his Loveless doctor, who rolls her eyes at him.

“Figures he’d have more stubborn pig-headed friends. He’s all yours, release papers are signed,” She hands a sheet of care instructions to Stephen and a manilla envelope filled with the information on support groups and councilors and reporting his attendance.

“Excellent, Stephen, darling, get your ass into a wheelchair.”

Stephen hates the wheelchairs, but he does as he’s told, knowing that it’s hospital procedure. He expects Tony to let a nurse take him downstairs to Tony’s waiting car, but Tony takes the handles of the chair himself, leaving them in a perfect position to speak without having to look at each other.

“So, still not going to tell me what this elective surgery is about?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Not even in exchange for a ride?”

“I’ll call Pepper if I have to. She’ll scold you for leaving a disabled man on the side of the road by the hospital.”

“I wouldn’t leave you on the side of the road. I’d leave you in the middle.” Stephen can’t see Tony’s joking grin, but he knows instinctively that it must be there. There’s another wave of empty nausea, but he ignores it.

\---------

Tony drops him off at the Sanctum Sanctorum, even going so far as to walk Stephen in and set him up in his room, bringing him water and producing a Starkpad from nowhere to give to him.

“It’s got state of the art voice commands. I know your hands aren’t the best with these kinds of screens.” There’s another roll of nausea like a thunder crack, but Stephen ignores it and analyzes the tablet. These small gestures, he knows, were his undoing. These were things Tony did for all his teammates, but they resonated with Stephen until he loved him. In so many universes, in so many alternate timelines, Stephen had failed irrevocably in love with Tony, and it was never for the grand gestures or the great sacrifices, it was these little gestures that stuck with him.

“Thank you, Stark. I appreciate it.” He feels a tug against his heart like pride, but there’s no pity in Tony’s eyes. He saw a problem, a difficulty, and then he did something to help. He wasn’t trying to fix Stephen. He wasn’t saying that Stephen wasn’t good enough. He was just trying to give Stephen easy access to the things he needed most. Magic, unfortunately, couldn’t manipulate the touch screens like it could books and other objects. Computers had become largely unusable to him.

“Sure thing. It’s got a stylus in there that you can control with your magic if that’s a thing wizards to.” His cheeky smile makes Stephen rolls his eyes.

“I’m a sorcerer, not a background character in a JK Rowling novel.”

“Sure thing.” He pulls a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and puts them on, smiling at Stephen all the while. “Still not going to tell me what the surgery was for?”

“If this was meant to be a bribe you can have it back.” He holds the remarkably light tablet up with shaking hands, but Tony waves it away.

“It was a gift, even if I did hope it would soften you up. You’re entitled to your secrets, I guess.” The way he says it makes it sound like Stephen most certainly isn’t entitled to his secrets, but he’s still not pushing it. “I’ll catch you tomorrow. Feel free to cancel if you’re not feeling up to it. If you push yourself Pepper won’t like it.”

“I thought she had her hands full keeping you from pushing yourself.”

“She does, but she’s a very adaptable woman and will gladly chew you out too.” He grins shoves his hands in his pocket. “It was good seeing you Strange.”

“You too, Tony.” Stephen smiles. Despite the empty space where love once suffocated him, it was still good to see Tony. They still bantered, they still laughed, they were still friendly. Stephen just didn’t love him anymore. Maybe this would be for the best after all.

Tony leaves without a backwards glance, just a casual hand wave and a yell for Stephen not to be late to lunch. Stephen laughs but doesn’t reply.

\-----

“Do you want me to bring you anything back?” Stephen asks, popping into the library at Kamar Taj to see Wong before he portaled to Pepper and Tony’s penthouse.

Wong furrowed his eyebrows when he saw Stephen standing so soon after surgery. “From where?”

“France, remember, I asked to have someone cover the Sanctum while I had lunch with Pepper and Tony?” Stephen raised an incredulous eyebrow at Wong, who usually didn’t forget when Stephen did things like “shirk his duties” and “put himself first.”

“You’re still going to that?” Wong’s tone of voice leaves no question as to his opinion on the matter. He doesn’t think Stephen should go. Stephen can’t imagine why.

“Of course. We made the plan weeks ago. Why wouldn’t I go?”

Wong’s eyes search him again, like at the hospital, and Stephen knows he must come up empty. Loveless. Should going out to lunch with his former love and his wife make him uncomfortable? “No reason, I suppose.” Wong closes the book he’s reading and gets up from his post to return it to the library. “I’m not hungry, no need to bring anything back.” The coldness is uncharacteristic of Wong, and Stephen knows it. He feels a different sort of hollowness now, not nausea. It’s more like an empty grief.

“Alright. I’ll see you later then.” Stephen leaves again, confused by Wong’s reaction. Stephen thought that being Loveless wasn’t changing much about him, or in his life, but maybe he was wrong.

\-----

“I went to lunch with my POA and his spouse.” Stephen tells the room at large, though he’s not really sure why. It was just his turn to share and he did. It felt fine. It felt easy. It didn’t hurt.

The Loveless Group is circled up like a bunch of kindergarteners, and Stephen could see every face in the room, just like they could see his. He's in plain clothes, sweats, loose tee-shirt, running shoes, the sort of things he wouldn’t have been caught dead in in public when he was still a practicing surgeon. “It made a close friend of mine, the only one I told about the surgery, uncomfortable. I didn’t tell him who my POA was, but I think he figured it out.” Stephen crosses his arms and looks down. “He’s smart like that.”

“And your POA,” the circle leader, though he assured the group there was no “leader” only a facilitator, asks, “Had no idea?”

“No. He’s married. He loves her. I didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on him.”

“How can you still be friends with your POA?” The woman almost directly across from him asks. Her bleach blond hair is growing in dark at the roots and her  eyes are bloodshot. “I mean, I don’t love mine anymore, but I still feel this ache where the love used to be. It’s unbearable.” She looks away, brown eyes tearing up, “I miss loving him.”

“Serena, this is difficult for all of us, and everyone’s reaction to Lovelessness is different.” The facilitator smiled at her. Deeply tanned skin, chocolate eyes, wavy ear length hair, he’s trying so hard to be compassionate through his own suffering, Stephen can tell.

“I have duties, responsibilities to people, maybe to the world. I haven’t really stopped to think about missing loving him.” Stephen is starting to worry that maybe they cut out more than the love. His empathy was never particularly well developed, but he could have sworn he had more than this.

“How long have you been Loveless?” another woman asks, this one older, maybe mid sixties, with blueing gray hair and fogging eyes. Cataracts.

“My surgery was last Thursday.” It’s only Tuesday now. Less than a week, just like the doctor ordered.

She smiles in his direction, but her eyes are having trouble focusing on him. She doesn’t seem to have anything else to say, so Stephen turns away from her, back to the friendly facilitator, silently asking him to move on.

“Alright, Carla, would you like to go next?”

The tiny girl sitting beside Stephen nods, but it’s acknowledgement, not affirmation. She keeps nodding like she’s thinking, and Stephen feels a twinge of sadness for her, for all of them. They had all almost died because of love, been betrayed by their own emotions, grown flowers for affection that had infected and destroyed. “My POA came back after The Snap. And… he told me he loved me, as soon as he saw me. I- I haven’t seen him in eight months. I didn’t know how to tell him that I’d killed whatever love I had for him to save myself.” Her voice becomes thick and the whole room watches silently, some averting their eyes like that will spare her the pain of their gaze. Stephen can’t imagine there’s any pain worse than what she must be feeling. Regret that deep doesn’t die easy.

“Carla,” The facilitator murmurs, leaning forward to see her more clearly where she sat too close to him in the circle. “There isn’t anything selfish about the choice you made. You did what you had to do. There’s not a single person here who judges you for that.”

There was a chorus of agreeable murmurs, Stephen’s not among them, but he still nods. They all understand what it was like to stand between flowers and life and choose life. Even if some of their loved ones didn’t understand.

Carla nods, keeps nodding. She bites her lip to ward off more tears, but shakes her head when they start flowing anyway. “My mom called me last night and told me that he was getting married. He wanted my address to send me an invitation.”

Stephen unconsciously reaches out to touch her, placing a hand on her shoulder. He hopes she doesn’t mind the shaking. She leans into it and her face collapses into her hands. “I don’t even love him anymore, but it hurts so much, because that could have been me. If I’d just held on maybe I could have survived until he came back and he- maybe he-”

Stephen feels tears come to his own eyes, knowing that missed opportunity too well. If he’d told Tony on Titan everything he’d seen, if he’d told him right there that he loved him, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten married while Stephen was gone. Maybe he would have waited for him. Maybe he could have come back to a man who was willing to love him like Stephen had loved him.

“I know it must be hard.” Stephen tells her, his own voice thick.

“It is. It’s so hard. I don’t even know why I cut them out if I still had to hurt this way.”

“Lovelessness only takes away the love.” The facilitator reminds her, “Everything else is still there. This pain is normal.”

“No,” she whimpers and Stephen’s heart breaks for her. She can’t be more than twenty. “No, it’s not normal. I’m supposed to move on. I’m supposed to be over it. Why does it still hurt so much?”

“Because not being able to love him doesn’t take away your ability to miss him.” Stephen tells her, strangely insightful for someone who’s only been Loveless a few days.

“He’s right.” The older woman says. “It’s like a bad break up, dear, but you don’t get the closure of falling out of love. It’ll pass with time. Some people only need a few months, some people need years.” There’s a far away look in her cloudy eyes that tells Stephen she was the latter.

Carla keeps crying and Stephen rubs her shoulder, looking at the facilitator to move on again. He does, and Stephen spends the rest of the session rubbing the girl’s shoulder, like that tiny bit of affection could heal the remnants of a lost heart.

\-----

“You did really well, especially for your first meeting. You okay?” The wavy haired facilitator asks him while Stephen was helping pick up trash after the meeting. Most of the others are stacking the chairs, but with his shaking hands Stephen would do more harm than good if he tried to assist them.

“I’m fine.” Stephen tells him, too curtly for someone who he had just bared whatever heart he had left to.

“Good to hear,” he says it like he believes it, but he obviously doesn’t. He pulls something out of his pocket and hands it to Stephen. “This is my card.” It’s cheap, printed on the thinnest card stock known to man and it tells him the name of the group, the name of the facilitator, Sebastian, and a phone number. “That’s my personal cell. To supplement the sessions we set up a buddy system, like AA sponsors. It changes every few months. When the next round starts I’ll add you to the roster. Text me there when you get a chance.” He points to the card again. “Until you get set up with a buddy from the group, think of me as your buddy. Any imposing thoughts, fears, worries, just shoot me a text and I’ll reply as fast as I can.” He pats Stephen on the arm and shakes him a little, like he’s forming a camaraderie. “First few weeks can be a learning curve, so feel free to talk, alright?”

Stephen nods, tells him a simple thank you before shoving the card into the pocket of his sweatpants. Sebastian smiles and excuses himself to finish cleaning up just in time for a red-eyed Carla to come up behind him and try to get his attention. He must have seen her coming.

“You were Stephen, right?” She asks, and he nods.

“Carla?” She nods, and she’s wringing her hands, not looking at his eyes for more than a few moments at a time.

“Yeah, I just- I wanted to thank you, for what you said, and for… understanding. I appreciate it.” She smiles, but it’s too stiff. He feels bad for her, for the pain she must be in. To live through The Snap was a sort of trauma all it’s own that generations of people would be living with, but with a returned Previous Object of Affection, he could imagine how she must be emotionally beating herself.

He nods at her, wants to reach out, but doesn’t. He shoves his hands in his pockets and smiles as kindly as he can manage. “I guess I just said what I would have wanted to hear. I hope you start feeling better soon.” It feels like a stupid thing to say, but he doesn’t have anything better to say, not then. He’s too fragmented, thinking about all the things he should be feeling but isn’t. The doctor said it might be this way, while he tried to get his emotional bearings.

“Me too.” She smiles, teary eyed again. “See you next week Stephen.” She walks away, turns back to wave, and Stephen watches her go. Stephen was under the impression that it was much harder to develop Hanahaki at her age. It must have been intense love. He sighs, pushes the thought away for another, more appropriate time, and finds a quiet place to portal himself back to the Sanctum. He needs to meditate.


End file.
